The conversion of a gaseous reformable fuel and/or a liquid reformable fuel to a hydrogen-rich carbon monoxide-containing gas mixture, a product commonly referred to as “synthesis gas” or “syngas,” can be carried out in accordance with any of such well known fuel reforming operations such as steam reforming, dry reforming, autothermal reforming, and catalytic partial oxidation reforming.
The development of improved fuel reformers, fuel reformer components, and reforming processes continues to be the focus of considerable research due to the potential of fuel cell systems or simply, “fuel cells,” i.e., devices for the electrochemical conversion of electrochemically oxidizable fuels such as hydrogen, mixtures of hydrogen and carbon monoxide, for example, syngas, and the like, to electricity, to play a greatly expanded role for general applications including main power units (MPUs) and auxiliary power units (APUs). Fuel cells also can be used for specialized applications, for example, as on-board electrical generating devices for electric vehicles, backup power sources for residential-use devices, main power sources for leisure-use, outdoor and other power-consuming devices in out-of-grid locations, and lighter weight, higher power density, ambient temperature-independent replacements for portable battery packs.
Because large scale, economic production of hydrogen, infrastructure required for its distribution, and practical means for its storage (especially as a transportation fuel) widely are believed to be a long way off, much current research and development has been directed to improving both fuel reformers as sources of electrochemically oxidizable fuels, notably mixtures of hydrogen and carbon monoxide, and fuel cell assemblies, commonly referred to as fuel cell “stacks,” as convertors of such fuels to electricity, and the integration of fuel reformers and fuel cells into more compact, reliable and efficient devices for the production of electrical energy.
With these considerations in mind, the provision and use of improved liquid reformable fuels for fuel cell applications has drawn attention. For example, the ability to provide a liquid reformable fuel to a vaporizer and subsequently a hydrocarbon reformer for conversion into a hydrogen-rich product for use by a fuel cell stack is desired, where the liquid reformable fuel is enriched with light end hydrocarbons (i.e., contains a greater percentage of light end hydrocarbons) and/or has a reduced sulfur content and/or a reduced content of other impurities. Thus, there is a need to improve systems for and methods of separating and/or filtering mixed reformable hydrocarbons such as jet fuels into a liquid reformable fuel enriched in light end hydrocarbons.